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The Bush administration's plans to build a radar station in the Czech Republic as part of its missile defence shield have never been far from the front pages, and today the story is back on the agenda. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to cut funding for the proposed missile defence facilities by almost one half, prompting a sharp exchange of views in Prague on whether the system will ever see the light of day.

The tourist season here in Prague is at its peak at the moment. To reflect the mix of visitors to the Czech capital, Radio Prague is running a mini-series of interviews with our 'tourists of the day'. All this week, you can hear what foreign visitors make of the capital, its good and its bad points. In the first installment, I visited Wenceslas Square to talk to some new-arrivals:

Edonis and Albion, two babies from Kosovo were flown to Prague in late July for life-saving surgery. Both were diagnosed with serious inborn heart defects by a team of Czech specialists active in war-stricken parts of the world. Today both are on the road to recovery - though in one case doctors say it was touch and go.

The collapse of a bridge in the US city of Minneapolis, in which at least four people died, filled the front pages of Czech papers on Friday - and has raised questions about the state of communications here in the Czech Republic. Czech road experts say that the authorities should take the Minneapolis tragedy as a serious warning, because many of the country's roads and bridges are in serious disrepair.

The Czech Army has started rotating troops deployed as part of NATO's ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Medical staff for the Czech field hospital flew in Kabul at the end of July; they were followed on Friday by 91 troops of the 6th Rapid Deployment Brigade that will replace their colleagues in a reconstruction team in the north-east of the country.

In just under a year's time the country's smallest coin - the 50 heller piece - will no longer be accepted as valid currency. The Czech National Bank says the little aluminium coin - which weighs just under 1 gram and is worth less than 2.5 US cents - is no longer worth minting, and will be withdrawn from circulation on September 1st 2008. The 50 heller piece thus goes the way of the 10 and 20 heller coins, which were withdrawn five years ago. Tomas Hladek is the Executive Director of the Czech National Bank's Cash and Payments Department.

Every summer, a ghastly image of an enlarged tick appears in the papers all over the Czech Republic, warning people against the dangers of these small, blood-sucking insects. The incidence of ticks in the Czech Republic has been on the rise in recent years and with their heightened number, the incidence of tick-transmitted infections - Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis - is increasing as well.

For thirty years, the most popular hard drug in the Czech Republic has been the Czech-made methamphetamine pervitin. Recently, however, the Czech anti-drug authorities have noticed that the price as well as popularity of cocaine is on the increase. Does this mean that as Czechs have become richer their drug habits have also changed?

In 1862 a certain count Metrnych from west Bohemia was traveling through the Caucasus when he came across a plant he'd never seen before - Heracleum, also known as giant hogweed. Fascinated, the count brought back seedlings home for his gardens in Kynzvart Chateau. Much to his delight the giant hogweed immediately took root - and so the count brought this invasive and noxious weed to the Bohemian lands. His legacy has not been forgotten - today towns in west Bohemia are still fighting this toxic invader.

This week the Czech newsmagazine Tyden reported on a theory that the so-called Czech basin, or massif, which makes up most of Bohemia, may have been created by a meteorite hitting the area around 2 billion years ago. The impact of the celestial object hitting the Earth would have been comparable to the force of many combined nuclear blasts. Generally, the Czech basin is thought to have been formed through plate tectonics, but now some scientists are considering a different possibility..